The word community often gives the sense of a large group of people with a common goal or focus with a shared group identity. Number, however, is not necessarily a qualifying aspect of a community. A small group of twelve individuals could easily fit the definition of a community. For this assignment, I’ve decided to discuss my short-term mission team that I had been a member of last summer. The group was a small one of, you guessed it, twelve members. This community was set with a common purpose, to bring knowledge of the Gospels of Jesus Christ to the people of Venezuela, a group identity as “Missions Team Venezuela”, and many shared thoughts and had fellowship with one another. We supported and associated anyone who was willing to listen and discuss our common interest including the local church from which we were locally based.
The twelve of us were members of the Korean Church at Cornell: English Ministries, a larger ‘parent’ community in a sense. Our involvement in the church prior to the trip allowed for a speedier development of a solid group identity. But to further strengthen interpersonal bonds, we trained both physically and spiritually with one another almost every moment of every day, weeks before leaving for Venezuela. During these sessions we would not only be learning the “how-tos” of being a missionary but they were also filled with a number of inside jokes to ensure our exclusivity. By Haythornwaite’s (2007) Gemeinschaft, we had the strong interpersonal ties, we shared focus and a common purpose and used common language and identity, a social community. The final characteristic that naturally followed was the reciprocity between members of this small community. During times of sharing in terms of our struggles and experiences, the members would at all times be supportive and give encouraging words to one another, a necessity in the cohesion in a community.
Now, in terms of “online/offline” synergies, for the remainder of the summer after returning from Venezuela, the main form of contact between members resorted to the CMC space. We now have a Facebook group, and talk regularly online and in person. Without the use of CMC prior to the trip, coordinating our trip with our translator and guide in Venezuela would have been impossible. Due to the physical distance between the members of the community, CMC plays quite a role in maintaining this community a community.
A community which began on face-to-face terms seems to have adapted to further maintain itself through the CMC space.
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/10/72-jeff-hancock-half-man-half-amazing.html
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/10/a72-myself.html
1 comment:
You describe your social network thoroughly. I agree that your organization is both a group and a community. One aspect that I think most differentiates a community is the idea of having both strong and weak ties. The strong ties obviously exist within the members of your immediate 12 person group, but each of you bring in several weak ties from the individual organizations from which you are a part of, for example the Korean Church at Cornell. You demonstrate the idea of weak ties through your examples, but you don't outrightly state it and I think it is an important point to make.
Also, do you think your community could have remained in tact without CMC? Do you think that CMC actually enhanced your community and not just kept you "in touch" with each other?
Just some questions to think about.
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